Leadership and Management

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Leadership in Health and Social Care.

The style and quality of leadership within a team has been shown to impact upon its effectiveness (Covey, 1992), indeed within the healthcare setting it is important for the care team to be well led in order to provide optimum patient care (Martin, 2000 and Borrill, et al. 2000). For this assignment I am going to critically analyse and reflect on the theoretical perspectives of leadership pertinent to teamwork within the healthcare setting in which I work. I will critically appraise the external and local drivers which influence the styles of leadership in the department. This will be achieved by using a combination of reflective models. I have recently become a sister in a busy paediatric A&E department and feel that the constantly changing client base and frequent changes of personnel within the A&E team on each shift, present unique challenges and necessitate a broad range of leadership skills. By reflecting on the qualities, attributes and skills which I and others possess and utilising the leadership qualities framework, I hope to develop into a more effective team leader.

Martin (2006) states that the leadership practice should be a reflective. According to Reid (1993) reflection is a process which involves describing, analysing and evaluating a situation or incident, reviewing it and then reviewing practice as a result of the learning. I have found that reflection assists me to assess a particular shift or incident within a shift and analyse what happened and what the implications are. By doing so, I find I can identify the positive and negative aspects of a situation and thus apply what I have learnt from this to my future practice, thereby enhancing both my role as a clinician and as a leader. For this assignment I have chosen to combine Ghaye, et al.’s (1996) model of reflection...